


These Fictional Shields That Prop Us Up

by cosmicsneakers



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types
Genre: Frodo plays a part, M/M, Steve just needs to be anchored by great fiction, semi-angsty, tw: mention of suicidal thoughts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-29
Updated: 2014-06-29
Packaged: 2018-02-05 11:04:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,871
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1816270
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cosmicsneakers/pseuds/cosmicsneakers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time Steve walks by a bookstore and is not too dazed by his surroundings to notice, he spots a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring tucked away in the shop window, a pale yellow ‘NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE’ sticker pasted onto the top left corner.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These Fictional Shields That Prop Us Up

**Author's Note:**

> (For the sake of the story, this is set in a hypothetical world where LOTR was published two or three decades before it really was, and is based in part on the First rather than the Second World War).

The first time Steve walks by a bookstore and is not too dazed by his surroundings to notice, he spots a copy of The Fellowship of the Ring tucked away in the shop window, a pale yellow ‘NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE’ sticker pasted onto the top left corner.

He pauses to pull out his little moleskine and jots this down, and puts his googling skills to use when he gets home from his groceries run (after checking that his apartment is secure). The Super Soldier is delighted to discover that highly acclaimed cinematic adaptations exist for all three books.

Steve vetoes Netflix and instead finds a nearby theatre that hosts reruns. He calls in to book a ticket to the next showing (Thursday at 7 PM, he's informed by the young employee who's on phone duty in an unprofessionally irked tone) and then changes into sweatpants and a plain white tee for the scheduled run with Sam that's another little routine he's built up for himself, another piece of the fortress meted out to wall up his emotions.

…

Steve can’t claim to have taken great lengths to re-acclimate to the world in the four months since New York, or even in the week he spent in the 21st century before that entire debacle. The revelation of what existed beyond the boundaries of his home planet didn’t help, but he takes the existence of gods and aliens and what-have-you in stride, considering.

There are days when he finds it difficult to get out of bed, when his limbs feel heavy and his head spins for no reason that can be attributed to failures in his anatomical set-up, like in pre-serum times; on these days, moving forward is the only way to stay afloat, and only pages and pages of files to skim through and mugfuls of bad coffee and the assurance that he’s at least helping people keep him grounded.

He looks up the symptoms for PTSD once and forces down the bile that rises in his throat as he skims the list, forgoes the suggestions of seeking out a specialist because  SHIELD doesn't think he needs fixing, SHIELD seems to think he's reassimilating just fine. After all, aside from a dead best friend and a now-bedridden woman,  Cap's ties to the forties weren't a real cause for any great emotional dissonance.  So Cap stomachs his pain and runs and runs and runs - “on your left” - and understands that he must bear the weight of his past, and when that proves to be too great a demand, it’s OK to wrap himself in a clo a k of fantasy for a few hours.

He does his best, small steps, and the rest of the team doesn’t question this need to retire from the real world to a fictional one every once in a while - they all have their coping strategies, it comes with the territory. He runs with Sam and goes to meetings with his friend and spars with Nat and occasionally goes for a beer with the rest of the STRIKE team, but that’s not enough and sometimes he has to leave this unfamiliar world to heal, and his escape plan has Middle Earth as its destination.

…

Truth be told, he’s a little nervous about actually watching the three movies, and whether they’ll rise to meet the high expectations he’s projected onto them.

Nat drives him home after an especially tasking STRIKE mission this particular Thursday and Sam is waiting on the steps, punctuality personified. He takes one look at the ruffled and unshaven Cap and the bullet-strewn suit hanging out of the backpack slewn over his shoulder and claps his friend on the back.

“See you tomorrow?”

Steve gives Sam a tired, grateful smile, out of place on his unmarred face.

“Shawarma on me afterwards? I know a place,” he admits, testing out this first.

Nat rolls her eyes, and Sam’s eyebrows quirk in mock surprise. “Do you, now? And here I thought you were a shoo-in for Shut-In of the Year award I'm sure Tony'll create just to create the context for another party. Sure, though,” he adds. And with a wave and a polite wink towards the Black Widow, he takes off in a jog.

Steve tells Nat he’s going to the gym's pool facilities to cool down, but in his mind he’s headed to Middle Earth, and his weary feet comply - a cool, dark theater seems like a better haven than his pointedly empty flat or ice-cold water he's still wary of right now. He contemplates asking Nat along, but his teammate looks even worse for wear than he does and he likes going to the theatre alone, anyway.

He isn’t disappointed.

...

The third time he goes to see The Return of the King, he takes Sam with him, despite the Falcon’s protests that he’d read The Hobbit in middle school and found it boring. The promise of Five Guys burgers is negotiated in the pleading process.

It’s a little bittersweet because Bucky didn’t understand his love for the saga, either.

…

 

“The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.”

\- Haldir, The Fellowship of the Ring.

  
...

A secondhand copy of The Fellowship of the Ring makes its way into the abode of a S.G. Rogers in a wrapped parcel on his twelfth birthday, courtesy of a friend of his father’s from the 107th. Over the years, the book and its successors become barely recognizable as havens of words but are survivors of every single one of the landmarks in Steve's life before he crashes into the ice. The appeal never fades or falters and is easy to identify: Frodo Baggins, our small and unlikely (orphaned) hero, lacking in great physical strength and doubted by all but purveyor of heaps of courage, a necessary item in the set that unlocks the door to freedom and the defeat of greater evils. Proof that there's room for someone like Steve in a world where your fists are regarded as a more valuable asset than your heart.

Later, Steve’s ‘I hope I’m the right man for the job’ attitude when confronted with Fury and Coulson and Hill’s faith with recruiting him for the Avengers Initiative helps him identify with the young hobbit even more.

...

He lends the books to Bucky, once, and even though his friend brushes them off as too melodramatic,  when he gets them back there’s one line that’s been circled with enough force to cause an imprint on the next few pages.

_“Even the smallest person can change the course of the future."_

…

 

Steve sits down to eat his breakfast with his fresh copy of the Washington Post and thinks of the last lines of The Lord of the Rings: _“He drew a deep breath. “Well, I’m back,” he said.”_

It’s been a few months, but the fighter in him remains in conflict with the man who, maybe against his better instincts, still feels like a widower.

 _I can take one more step forward_.

…

Sam gets him a shirt with the ‘One does not simply walk into Mordor’ meme printed on it for Christmas.

Steve wears it unironically - he’s learnt his lesson with the gorge.

…

‘It’s like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered, full of darkness and danger they were. Sometimes you didn’t want to know the end, because how could the end be happy. How could the world go back to the way it was when there’s so much bad that had happened? But in the end it’s only a passing thing, this shadow; even darkness must pass.’

– Samwise Gamgee.

…

LOTR becomes even more relevant to Steve's 21st century experience when they finally find the Winter Soldier. Or rather, Bucky finds them.

He makes a grand entrance as the two men are exiting a taco joint, Sam laughing as Steve tries to wipe some leftover sauce that has latched itself onto the corners of his smiling mouth.

Sam is part dazed and part wary, but he gives the two men the space they need when Bucky reveals that he’s unarmed and really just looking to chat.

They end up in Steve’s car (Sam opts for the subway), not really sure what to say to each other. It’s clear that Bucky has regained most of his memories, so it's not difficult for Stevento suss out that his pal is not there for a Q&A session.

Bucky sneaks a fry from the dashboard and throws it into his mouth. Steve keeps his eyes fixed on the wheel, his fingers dancing around on the leather - a nervous tick that's a remnant from times of war. 

“I…”

Steve’s eyes flicker to his friend’s, and he sees his resignation reflected there.

Bucky’s taking small steps, too, and Steve’s role in his quest is suddenly clear.

He nods.

“Okay.”

...

 

The Winter Soldier relapses after six days, and disappears wordlessly following an incident with a spatula that leaves a wounded Sam and an almost-dissected Steve.

  
...

Bucky never dwells far, and Steve can sort of sense him.

He busies himself, investing in (OK, stealing) a police scanner and trying to right a few wrongs while he watches over his best friend. Sometimes he mopes around in a black sweatshirt with the hood pulled up, his headphones blaring Radiohead, contemplates suicide because if he doesn’t have Steve, he only has himself - he only has the horrors of what he’s done, the phantoms of the bodies he left in his wake - he has nothing.

He’s caught on to Steve’s habit of rewatching Peter Jackson’s ‘masterpieces’ - it’s one the Winter Soldier can’t comprehend at all but Bucky sort of gets, even though he doesn’t think they compare to the books. Still, he gives them a go (always making sure Steve is otherwise occupied, to avoid accidental run-ins). He’s never told Steve this, but he’s always felt like the Sam to the blonde’s Frodo - a secondary character in a story he’s witnessing, tagging along, a tool for comic relief, there to step in when he’s needed, worth nothing unto himself.

He buys a carton of buttered popcorn and a large fizzy drink that tastes worse than the shitty beer he’d drunk with the Commandos several lifetimes ago, resigned - he’s at a point where he’ll do anything to reconnect with his best friend, but he’s pretty sure the nine-hour marathon will bore him to death.

Instead, it ends up saving his life.

…

He thinks that maybe Steve really is a little like Frodo, trying to overcome enormous odds to rid the world of evil, and maybe Bucky’s the other outcome the ring represents, the one that’s constantly being drawn back to submission to evil.

The message of having hope in the face of hopelessness is too strong to ignore.

The pull of Steve is too strong to ignore.

...

 

The Winter Soldier drops through the window, and the lump on the couch sits up straight, immediately alert.

“Buck?”, a groggy Steve manages.

Bucky draws a deep breath.

“Well,” he says, “I’m back”.


End file.
